‘The Last Photograph’ Review: Zack Snyder’s Indie Adventure Falls Flat

After an extended sojourn working in the DC Extended Universe, successful filmmaker Zack Snyder casts off those studio shackles and goes full-on indie with The Last Photograph, a highly personal, long-in-gestation, self-styled Western that trades lavish studio sets for the wide-open spaces of Colombian location shoots. But while the change of pace undoubtedly felt liberating, the end result comes across as a leaden misfire.

Overstuffed with pretentious symbolism and flatly delivered, vapid dialogue that constantly overstates the obvious, the ultraviolent film — about a rogue government agent who enlists the help of a heroin-addicted shutterbug to take revenge on the murder of his brother and sister-in-law and rescue their abducted kids — is certain to be regarded as a major disappointment by Snyder’s rabid fan base.

Positioned as a premium centerpiece for TIFF’s inaugural market, where it is hoping to secure a distribution deal, the 135-minute slog was given Special Event status, meaning there will be no repeat screenings beyond its world premiere on Sunday evening. Many of those who exited the theater shared the same expression of disbelief over what they had just experienced.

We don’t know it when we’re first introduced to him, but Ethan Black (Stuart Martin), who would appear to be a loner sheep herder, is actually an ex-DEA agent who thought he had left his more violent ways behind him. That is until his young niece and nephew are kidnapped at a birthday party following the fatal shooting of his diplomat brother and the latter’s wife (Constanza Andrade).

Regarded as something of a God-like presence by the locals, Black turns avenging angel as he teams up with Joe Wallace (Fra Fee), a junkie war photographer — when he’s not shooting conflict, he shooting heroin — who snapped a photo of the children’s mother at the moment she was shot in cold blood. Wallace is instrumental in Black identifying and tracking down her killer and hopefully bringing home those missing kids.

And so, the two men with very different life philosophies proceed to journey ever deeper into the South American heart of darkness, with a little bit of The Searchers thrown in for good measure.

A whole lot of very intense blood-spilling ensues, but to be honest, it often comes as a welcome distraction from screenwriter Kurt Johnstadt’s monotonous dialogue and clunky expository character motivations that are needlessly underscored by redundant flashbacks. Who would’ve thought, for example, that Wallace was constantly hiding behind the lens of his trusty camera as a way to numb himself to the horrors of the world? And when he tells Black, “I’m not good at being noble,” was that a deliberate nod to the Humphrey Bogart line in Casablanca? And, if so, why?

Saddled with characters that play more like memes than fully inhabited human beings, both Martin and Fee, let’s just say, have made a better impression elsewhere. Mexican actress Andrade, whose character happens to be the love of Black’s life, fares somewhat better, but still isn’t quite let off the hook by the film’s overall tendency to portray its female characters in the same misogynistically objectified light. The xenophobic portrayal of the area’s indigenous population is a whole other, uncomfortable issue.

To be fair, Snyder, who’s also credited as the film’s cinematographer, captures no shortage of admittedly stirring images throughout, especially those involving flickering light and brooding shadows. The constant intrusion of yellow butterfly imagery, on the other hand, begins to border on the overindulgent long before one final, eyeball-rolling appearance. In the absence of the filmmaker’s trademark super-sized canvas, the usual techniques can’t help but feel forcefully out of scale here.

Still, one might justifiably argue that Snyder at least deserves credit for going out on a limb — even if it can’t help but snap under the weight of all that affectation.